Electoral geography and redistributive politics

Karen L Jusko

Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2015, vol. 27, issue 2, 269-287

Abstract: This paper offers a new electoral geography perspective on two stylized facts that do not fit easily with our current understanding of the implications of electoral rules for electoral politics and social policy: (1) proportional representation (PR) electoral rules are not always associated with more generous social spending. In some cases, we observe comparatively high levels of social spending in majoritarian single-member district (SMD) systems. (2) Contrary to our theoretical expectations, national two-party competition occurs rarely, even under SMD rules. Here, I demonstrate the importance of electoral geography through a series of analytic examples that are based on a simple model of electoral politics, and in which all possible combinations of electoral boundaries, rules, and voter locations are manipulated.

Keywords: Political economy; democratic politics; redistribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:27:y:2015:i:2:p:269-287

DOI: 10.1177/0951629814521514

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